Techmeme
May 15, 2014, 10:40 AM

Top News

FRONTLINE:
“United States of Secrets”: How the Government Came to Spy on Millions of Americans  —  United States of Secrets  —  How did the government come to spy on millions of Americans?  —  In United States of Secrets, a two-part series airing May 13 and 20, FRONTLINE goes behind …
Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:
Photos of an NSA “upgrade” factory show Cisco router getting implant  —  Servers, routers get “beacons” implanted at secret locations by NSA's TAO team.  —  A document included in the trove of National Security Agency files released with Glenn Greenwald's book No Place to Hide details …
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
German Regulator Says Google Promises ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Mechanism in Two Weeks  —  Google Inc. will create a mechanism for German users to request the removal of links to information about them from the company's popular search engine within the next two weeks, German privacy officials said Thursday …
Jane Wakefield / BBC:
Politician and paedophile ask Google to ‘be forgotten’  —  The right-to-be-forgotten ruling set a precedent for the removal of search results in Europe  —  Google has received fresh takedown requests after a European court ruled that an individual could force it to remove “irrelevant and outdated” search results, the BBC has learned.
Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Apple's Beats Deal May Not Be Finalized Until Next Week  —  More time for people to speculate about what it all means: Apple's planned deal to buy Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion may not be finalized until next week, according to people familiar with the transaction.
Larry Page / Google:
2013 Founders' Letter  —  Sergey and I started Google because we wanted “to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible” (Founders' IPO Letter, 2004).  We've stayed true to that mission, placing long-term bets on new technologies that users truly love …
Aloysius Low / CNET News:
Xiaomi Mi Pad is a $240 plastic iPad Mini lookalike  —  Xiaomi's first slate sports a 7.9-inch display with resolution equal to Apple's Retina Display of 2,048x1,536-pixels and is powered by Nvidia's Tegra K1 processor.  —  Aloysius Low/CNET  —  BEIJING, China—If you ever wondered …
Sharif Sakr / Engadget:
HTC's One Mini 2 is an awkwardly named, cut-down version of the excellent One M8  —  There's a lot riding on today's announcement.  A smaller, cheaper, perhaps more mainstream version of the lovely (but long) HTC One M8 could be a good thing not only for phone buyers, but also for HTC itself …
Wall Street Journal:
Samsung says Galaxy S5 sales reached 11M since launch in early April, outpacing S4 sales  —  Samsung Says New Galaxy S5 Is Off to Strong Start  —  Early Sales Suggest Samsung's Smartphone Business Is Regaining Momentum  —  SUWON, South Korea—In a sign that Samsung Electronics Co.'s smartphone business …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Comcast plans data caps for all customers in 5 years, could be 500GB  —  A Comcast executive said he expects the company will roll out “usage-based billing”—what most people call “data caps”—to all of its customers within five years.  —  Speaking with investors today (transcript) …
Dylan Tweney / VentureBeat:
OpenDNS raises $35M for its security and content-filtering servers  —  How can big data and smart analytics ignite growth for your company?  Find out at DataBeat, May 19-20 in San Francisco, from top data scientists, analysts, investors, and entrepreneurs.  There are less than 50 tickets left!
Gareth Beavis / TechRadar:
OnePlus One is only $299 because it's sold at cost, says CEO Peter Lau  —  Revealed: the reason the OnePlus One is so cheap  —  EXCLUSIVE New brand relying on word of mouth over marketing … OnePlus CEO Peter Lau has revealed to TechRadar how the company is able to offer its flagship handset …
Hannah Karp / Wall Street Journal:
Warner, Universal, Sony Buy Stakes in Music App Shazam  —  Shazam Entertainment, the music-identification app, landed small investments from the world's biggest record companies, according to people familiar with the matter.  —  Warner Music Group owner Access Industries …
Liz Gannes / Re/code:
Creative Commons Picks Former Mozilla COO Ryan Merkley as CEO  —  Creative Commons, the nonprofit organization that helps enable online content usage, has named a new CEO: Ryan Merkley, who was formerly COO of the Mozilla Foundation and managing director of market research firm Vision Critical.
Zach Miners / PC World:
Target, The Gap and others form group to share cyberthreat data  —  Some of the biggest U.S. retailers have banded together to share information about cyberthreats, in a bid to avert breaches like that suffered by Target last holiday season.  —  Target, The Gap, Walgreens and J.C. Penney …

Sponsor Posts

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Zoho:
Zoho RPA named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix by Nucleus Research  —  Zoho RPA has been named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix, published by Nucleus Research …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Access:
A top iPhone app developer reacts to Apple's new Siri
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Hard Fork:
'Hard Fork' Live, Part 1: Satya Nadella and Cindy Cohn
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
TBC's Alex Ksendzovsky: The Neurosurgeon Using Brain Cells To Build Better AI
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
BG2 Pod:
The SpaceX IPO, Fable 5, AI Capex Update & Market Check w/ Gavin Baker, Andrew Fox & Clark Tang
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
All about Interest Rates
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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Henry K. Lee / San Francisco Chronicle:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Cory Doctorow / Guardian:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch: